This invention relates to an attachment that mounts on the temple bar of a safety eyeglass and that holds a noise-blocking earplug so it can be plugged into the ear canal whenever the environmental noise level becomes high.
There are many manufacturing and research environments where the eyes of a worker must be protected by a safety eyeglass, and where the ears of the worker must sometimes be protected against very loud noises. When the noise level is not high, workers often wish to remove the earplugs from the ears, to allow them to better hear sounds and to avoid the discomfort of earplugs in their ears. The earplugs can be entirely separate items, although this requires a worker to store the earplugs when not used, which can be inconvenient. The earplugs can be attached to a device that supports them on the temple bars of the eyeglass, so the earplugs are very conveniently available when they must be again plugged into the ear canal, and so they can be easily stowed when not used. U.S. Pat. No. 262,491 shows such an assembly, where a one-piece device includes a strap forming a loop at one end that can be looped about the temple bar, and forming an earplug at the opposite end. Although such a device can conveniently store an earplug, it would be desirable to provide an attachment that enables storage of an earplug as comfortably and conveniently as possible with minimum "jiggling" of the earplug as the worker moved his/her head, while enabling insertion into the ear canal with maximum comfort.